Distribution rights are automatically ceded. Anyone can distribute any number of copies of any musical work to anybody else.
Pros: Makes the buying public happy.
Cons: There’s no motive to pay the originating artist on the part of distributors. Anyone can set up a program like iTunes, sell songs, and not give a cent to the artist. Hurts small bands who people don’t “have” to own to be cool.
Title capping. You can only distribute up to X number of songs to friends/acquaintances/YouTube or you need to start paying licensing fees.
Pros: Also makes the public happy.
Cons: Rather farcical to think that you could actually police it. Though possibly with public support, anyone breaking it would be reported by the general public.
Singles are released distribution free, the rest of the songs are as current.
Pros: Encourages the creation of good songs beyond just the single. The mass public acts to publicize the album at no effort on the part of the distributor. The mass public gets to sample new albums without just grabbing the whole thing and so has a motive to buy the full album and no moral ground to say that they deserve the chance to sample what they’re getting.
Cons: Possibly the public will say that they’ll only take options 1 or 2 and continue to act like jerks.
Legislature stays out of the issue, lets businesses which find a business strategy which works for them on their own, and lets those that choose not to to die the death they deserve.
Pros: Makes libertarians happy. Everyone gets what they want (except the bad guys) in a way that’s a market-found and proven compromise.
Cons: Patience is required.
Personally, I like items 3 and 4. Or to be specific that the peoples of the internet would tell businesses that they would be happy with #3, businesses agree, and nothing ever has to become legislated (#4).
It really seems like a compromise that’s fair and financially sound, but one side or the other has to make the first step and that sure ain’t going to be the RIAA.
Obviously feel free to post any other possibilities. I’d encourage people to not get too focused on any one train of thought and turn the thread into a discussion of that one tangent.
IIRC some band (Green Day?) released a song for free on the internet. The public could pay for it, providing whatever money they saw fit, or take it for free. Later they pulled it (was an experiment on their part) and sold it like normal. My recollection is the song netted them a lot of money and more than any single they distributed normally (no middle men taking a cut).
As such I am not sure that the public would not pay for music if offered for free.
Of course the novelty may have skewed the results and if it became common practice revenue may drop but nevertheless it showed that people would of their own accord pay for the song.
Meh… I say just abandon the entire concept of copyright altogether. It’s not like there was no writing or music before there was copyright. Also abandon the concept of a career artist of any kind. The best music and art is that created for the purpose of expression, rather than that which is created for mass appeal to make money. The internet has already made it possible for a person to distribute their own work without a record deal or publisher. Computers replace a lot of specialized equipment, making all kinds of artistic expression possible for amateurs, where before, it was solely the domain of professional artists. If the trend continues, someday people will wonder why anyone ever listed to that commercial crap.
It might work as a one time thing, but as an ongoing business model, it would never work. It’s actually worse than just giving the music away, because you have to set up a billing system to take in the money that only 1% of your customers are willing to pay.
My recommendation is to maintain copyright, and keep the unauthorized copying “underground”. Lower your prices such that the savings from going “illegal” aren’t that big, and work to provide additional utility from the legal avenue of purchase.
Sage Rat This is the question I’ve been thinking about, in various contexts, since the late 80’s and I haven’t been able to come to a decision yet that seems workable across all industries that are traditionally covered by copyright law. I lean close towards abandoning the system in toto (as NoJustice said), with some specific qualifications. In any case, I haven’t come up with a perfect system.
I’m looking forward to see what other people think.
Oh, please. There is just as much crappy amateur music out there as there is commercial garbage.
And your argument obsfucates the crux of the matter, simply that people, because they’re inherently greedy, will steal whenever they think they can get away with it.
If doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, retail workers, waiters, office drones, programmers, etc. all decide, en masse, to work for free then I’d thoroughly support getting rid of copyrights.
Writing a song or book, making a movie or video game is work. The people behind those efforts should be paid for it, if they choose. They should also be able to protect the integrity and quality of their work.
Do you believe the same for patents? Was it acceptable what Ford did to Robert Kearns?
It’s very simple. If artists cannot make money off of the mass distribution of their works, they will switch to a business model that does not involve mass distribution.
So, for example, if it becomes impossible to enforce copyright on music, professional musicians will focus on live shows and merchanise. They may release some singles as promos, but their best stuff will only be played in front of live audiences where they can physically control access to the venue.
Similarly, widespread piracy of videogames will lead to a return to an arcade model of distribution. Widespread piracry of movies will lead to the abandonment of DVDs and a return to exclusive theatrical releases. And so on.
Artists will make less money without copyright, but they’ll still make money. What will absolutely go away is the audience’s ability to experience the best music/games/shows/whatever in anything other than a pay-to-enter venue.
You’re really generous with other people’s money. People that hold copyrights are entitled to enforce them, and to be paid for their product. I say we start flogging illegal downloaders live on PPV. Say 300 lashes for a first offense. Plus the usual monetary damages and attorney fees, of course.
Actually, at this point I’d guess there’s a lot more crappy amateur music out there than commercial garbage. This does not contradict my point.
No obfuscation, just declining to mention issues which I consider irrelevant to the matter at hand. Legalities aside, I don’t think an act can actually be ‘stealing’ if the person you take something from is not deprived of it. Thus you cannot steal an idea. (and please do not confuse this with stealing credit for conceiving an idea)
Ok. But some of us aren’t going to wait for that, and you haven’t suggested any reason why we should.
Why?
Patents serve a very different function than copyrights. Ultimately I suspect they will eventually fall in a manner similar to what is happening to copyright today, but I’m not sure about that, or what negative consequences it might have.
Or maybe they’ll switch to a mass distribution that does not involve a business model. I think you know which one I think is more likely (Hint: one is already happening)
If this happens, ‘professional musicians’ will fall into obscurity. I say “good riddance” to them.
Any theories on why this shows no signs of happening yet? Meanwhile free games are becoming more and more common. (Movies are tougher to guage due to questions of what does and does not qualify as a ‘movie’ and whether it can be compared to the products of Hollywood.)
Why do you assume that those who choose money over expressing themselves to larger audiences will be the source of “the best music/games/shows/whatever”?
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Legally… sure. But if those laws laws become unenforcible, what then?
I’d go for a modified version of this. Copyright lengths need to be drastically altered. Something like 10-20 years max, or until the music is no longer in print. As soon as it is not available for purchase, it becomes copyright free.
With digital distribution available the way it is, that last part would mean that a lot of music (and books and movies and probably computer games) would be pulled out of storage and made available for public purchase, since the other option it to lose the right to make money off of it. That would put a nix on the whole “but I can’t buy it legally” issue.
Finally, I would make is so that what the consumer purchases is the right to have a song/book/etc, not the right to have a disc/albumn/tape/hard drive with the material on it. Basically, if I’ve paid for it once, I can move it to new media.
Because someone who earns a living off their art gets to work at it full time instead of having to cram it into the nooks and crannies left over after putting in 40 hours a week at their day job.
If someone is really good at making music, wouldn’t it be better for that person to spend most of his time doing it instead of spending most of his time selling shoes?
Since copyright length doesn’t much impact on piracy (which is principally what this thread is concerned with) and more on people in the same industry who would like to be able to include clips and stuff, I think it’s best to leave that subject to another thread. (Unless you think honestly think that it’s a real issue for most infringers.)
Subscription. You pay a monthly fee to listen to all the music you want. It’s so small you can’t be bothered to muck about with downloading illegal copies. The feed goes (minus the middle man cut) to the artists making the music you listen to.
There was a report a time back showing that games with better DRM sold more compared to their average ratings than games of the same rating. Obviously some games use cripplingly strong DRM and the games take a hit for political reasons, but generally releasing things with no guards does bleed away revenue. And that’s revenue that small, unestablished bands can’t afford.
My friend has a band that is actually making professional quality, original music, and 90% of everyone who owns his music never bought it, which rather annoys him.
Now perhaps none of these examples is actually the real story. But I definitely would say that item #1 is not a compromise with the record industry. It’s something that they, at least, believe to be robbing the artists of revenue, and they’re going to fight it to their last breath. If for no other reason, I’d say that that makes #1 a non-starter as far as legislation goes.
This assumes that working full time at something creates better results than cramming it into the nooks and crannies left over after putting in 40 hours a week at a day job. I see no reason to believe this rule applies when it comes to artistic expression, and I suspect the opposite may well be true.
A bit simplistic (if a person’s life consisted mostly of them expressing themselves, they’d have little of meaning to express) but aside from that there’s still the fact that ‘artists should be supported’ is a totally different claim than ‘art should be restricted to those that support the artist’.
On preview
Did I say anything about outlawing artists charging for their art?
aside from that… it’s interesting to consider that you must think McDonald’s is the best food in the world.
